We reviewed WRC 7

WRC 7 will be officially released tomorrow, but we have been playing the game for almost a week now, on PC and PS4 Pro. We therefore have tons of videos to share with you as well as a full verdict and our usual +/- section. We also remind you that we will be live playing the game tonight from 9:00 to 9:40 CET.

Verdict

Is WRC 7 more accessible than DiRT Rally? Obviously, as it reminds more of the original Colin McRae games than anything else. Does it mean the game is just an insipid arcade racer with no finesse to it? Hell no! With this third attempt in the WRC franchise, developer Kylotonn has proven us their talent when it comes to making solid rally games that can be fun and still demanding in many respects. Stages are particularly well-crafted, which adds a lot of tension when behind the wheel of the 2017 WRC cars. Not only is WRC 7 a real pleasure to play, but it is also very nice on the eye this year, with environments that often look better than DiRT 4's, if not always. Of course, console players will probably be a bit disappointed by the 30 fps locked framerate, but it is never detrimental to gameplay and the choice to finally propose a smooth experience was the right one in our opinion. The last 2 games had unlocked framerates and that's something we could never truly enjoy. With all the positives we find in this year's edition, it is then all the more frustrating to see WRC 7 has more or less the same shortcomings than Codemasters' rally titles, with a number of stages per country that is a bit stingy, even though it can be explained by the choice to make longer ones instead of a wider selection of short tracks. Ever since we played WRC 5, we felt the French studio's work was really promising, so we're happy to see we were right. Each year, the franchise gets better and better, and this time, the leap is clearly a lot more impressive. You and our fellow colleagues may disagree of course, but we've had a real blast playing WRC 7 and we can't wait to try it with a wheel. What a great end of year for car racing games fans!

This looks fantastic, surprisingly. The Argentina video almost looks photo real from inside the car. Amazing lighting and environment detail, and it looks like it plays a lot like the first two McRae games on the PS1, which are two of my favourite rally games.

They didn't choose not to do it, they simply couldn't. There must be a reason why DiRT 4 doesn't look very good on PS4 (and PS4 Pro). Now I understand that some people would be disappointed, but when you consider the latest F1 game, which has tearing and drops on PS4 Pro, I'm not sure this is what I would want.

On Dirt 4 there are stages that you must compete with other cars and that makes it more demanding for base PS4, but even on these demanding stages Pro handles them perfectly at 60fps!
On Dirt Rally & WRC you only compete with time!

And there is tearing in those races (and frame drops as far as I can remember), and it's only 5 to 6 cars right? but then again, it cannot be compared when you don't know the size of the team and the game's budget. DiRT 4 took more than a year to develop too.

Dirt Rally (which I own) runs perfectly stable at 60fps and it's a 2 years old game!
I agree with you that it's not fair to compare the 2 teams, because I'm sure that Codemasters have more team members but i still believe that when you can achive close to 60fps on base PS4 on WRC 6 it's really a shame to not achive 60fps on Pro.

To tell you the truth I'm really happy that they locked at 30 the base PS4 version because WRC 5 & 6 had big problems with screen tearing and fps drops that ruined the handling and the overall experience.
Even with these problems WRC games on PS4 are still my favorite Rally games and certainly the most enjoyable to play!

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